Postcards
by agentsofpuppies
Summary: In which Clint corners Natalia in a hotel room, shots are fired, and a partnership accidentally sort-of happens. Yeah, another Strike Team Delta origin story.
1. Guten Tag

Hi! Welcome to my massive Strike Team: Delta origin story! It's been done 10,294 times before, but I won't let that stop me. Featuring: Clint, Natasha, Clint/Natasha, dad-Coulson, pizza dog, good missions, bad missions, Budapest, explosions, fluff, angst, kissing, the sex, etc. Canon compliant with pretty much everything in the MCU/Avengers/Cap 2/AoS/what-have-you. Let's get started. :3

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><p><strong>Postcards<strong>

**Prologue: Guten Tag**

Drechsler lay spread eagle on the bed in the corner, wrists cuffed to the iron bars of the headboard, naked except for a Hermes silk tie hanging loose around his broken neck. The last vestiges of a salacious grin still lingered around his mouth. Natalia sneered at the body in disgust and wriggled back into her too-short, too-tight black dress. The asshole hadn't even noticed the gun holster strapped to her thigh until she was straddling him. _No peeking_, she'd purred as she slipped the dress straps from her shoulders and advanced to the bed, and the obedient bastard had kept his eyes locked with hers the entire time.

Natalia paused, listening hard for the sound of voices or the creaky floorboard two doors down. Satisfied that the mark's associates were still occupied in the hotel's bar, she crossed the room to the desk and booted up his laptop.

Technically the hit was finished. She could make her exit and rendezvous with the rival drug lord who'd hired her, receive the other half of her pay. Information was valuable, however, and she had a few minutes before anyone noticed the lack of sex coming from the upstairs suite.

Lithe, quick fingers played across the laptop keys. She knew the hotel was a front, a cover for the massive amounts of cash and product that exchanged hands each week. Drechsler wasn't an intelligent man, all things considered. Within moments she had several spreadsheets saved to a flash drive; delivery schedules and drop off locations, client lists, distribution maps, logins and security keys for several offshore bank accounts, which she'd make use of herself, and a list of suppliers.

The floorboard down the hallway creaked. Natalia pulled the flash drive free and shoved it down the front of her dress just as the door slid open. One of the men from the bar slipped into the room, muttering to himself as he threw the deadbolt.

"Nice one, Barton. Real subtle."

Angry German shouting echoed up the stairwell. Natalia assumed the man was berating himself. She pegged Barton as an unmitigated idiot and clicked on the little desk lamp.

"_Guten tag_," she deadpanned, watching with amusement as he startled and whipped around and raised a bow of all things. She leveled her gun at him in return.

"Aw, shit."

She watched his eyes sweep over the room, lingering on the dead drug lord in the corner. He was so obviously American when he spoke, she couldn't understand why the thugs downstairs hadn't caught on sooner.

Every instinct was telling her to shoot him, end him and get out - she could hear the angry Germans systematically searching the rooms, kicking in doors and shouting - but she wanted to know what business an American spy had infiltrating this particular drug ring. Information was valuable, after all.

"Shit," he repeated. "You work fast."

"How long have _you_ been trying to seduce Drechsler?" she quipped. The man's lips pressed together in a tight frown. "Didn't mean to steal your mark," she added insincerely.

"He wasn't my mark."

_Should've shot him_, Natalia chastised herself. She leveled her second gun at the archer's head as he advanced a step further into the room. She could guess what was coming next.

"I was supposed to stop _you_ before you murdered anyone else."

There it was.

"You know who I am?" she asked, stalling for time. She moved closer to the window, regrettably closed and locked. The archer lifted an eyebrow.

"You have an M.O.," he shot back sarcastically, gesturing to the body on the bed. "Black Widow. Natalia Alianovna Romanova. S.H.I.E.L.D. sent me to terminate you."

"And how's that going?"

The Germans were tearing apart the room next door. Their suite would be next.

"Not so well, actually."

They stood at an impasse for several long moments. Natalia watched the archer shift his weight from one foot to the other, saw his finger twitch against the bowstring. Drechsler's men pounded on the door. All she had to do was hold out long enough for them to break in. She could claim the archer had killed Drechsler, play the part of the terrified sobbing prostitute (God, how cliche), slip out unnoticed while they handled the archer for her.

The arrow shot past her at shoulder height. The window exploded.

...


	2. Partners?

**Chapter 1: Partners?**

"_Dolbo yeb_," Natalia snarled, and wrenched the jagged shard of glass from her forearm. The archer was gone, presumably down the fire escape, and the angry German shouting turned into suggestions to shoot the lock. Maybe the archer wasn't the idiot she'd initially thought.

What had she possibly done to get S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention? She considered KGB assassins well under their radar, unimportant in the grand scheme of things. It should be her boss's bosses who ended up with kill orders from S.H.I.E.L.D. She was a pawn, expendable. The Red Room would send another girl, she would be replaced, the missions and assassinations would carry on with hardly an interruption.

She pressed her palm against the cut on her arm, but a moment's pressure wouldn't be enough to stop it bleeding. She wiped her bloody hand on her dress, gathered her guns, and picked herself up off the floor. The thick wood around the doorknob began to splinter as the men outside emptied their clips.

The idea that the archer had followed her, seamlessly inserted himself into the group downstairs, that she hadn't noticed, made her feel twitchy. She'd been tailing the mark for close to a week; how long had the archer been tailing her?

The door banged open and rebounded off the wall. Natalia fired two shots, one round from each gun, and vaulted out onto the fire escape after the archer.

He was sprinting down the alley, bow slung over one shoulder. Natalia lined up her shot. Back of the head, a clean kill, but curiosity stayed her hand again. If he knew enough about her mission to be waiting in the hotel bar tonight, who had passed him the information? He needed to be interrogated, not killed. Not yet.

She adjusted her aim, intending to shoot out his knee from behind, but the moment had passed. Cries of '_Dead!_' and '_They are together!_' and '_Partners!_' reached her from the hotel suite. She snorted with derision and started down the fire escape, slipping down the icy steps three at a time as the first bullets pinged off the metal grating above. The archer wouldn't last half a mission as her partner. He was too sloppy, too undisciplined. Sure, he was apparently skilled at lurking and tracking, but whatever he'd managed to do downstairs had royally fucked up both their missions.

A car swung into the mouth of the alley, the man in the passenger seat spraying bullets indiscriminately through the open window.

The archer's yelp of "_I'm not with her_!" echoed back to her and she jumped from the last landing into the snow below. The drift was deeper than she anticipated, and she staggered and turned her ankle in the impractical fuck-me heels she'd selected to match the dress. A body thunked heavily into the snow beside her, an arrow protruding from its eye socket.

Was the archer _covering_ her?

She spun and raised her guns, taking out the remaining four on the fire escape with precise shots to the forehead. The archer was crouched behind a dumpster halfway down the alley, an arrow nocked and aimed at the fire escape but no target now. She expected him to point the bow at her, and she leveled her guns at him in anticipation, but he spun to peer around the corner of the dumpster instead, his back to her as he assessed the group spilling from the backseat of the car.

Still an idiot, then. Nobody with a sense of self-preservation turned their back on the Black Widow.

She pressed herself against the brick and waited for a break in the gunfire coming from the end of the alley. She was too proud to admit it, but the fight would go easier with the archer's help. The opposite end of the alley terminated in the high walls of surrounding buildings; the only way out was past the machine guns and hired muscle.

A temporary truce, that was all. The old 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' proverb. She wasn't helping him so much as using him as a means to achieve her own ends. She could live with that.

An access door opened halfway down the alley and a thick man wielding a crowbar stepped into the snow with slow, heavy steps, apparently intent on sneaking in to wallop the archer. He was preoccupied firing arrows around the corner of the dumpster.

She recalled the corpse with an arrow through its face, heard the uncomfortable whisper of her conscience in the back of her mind, informing her that she owed the archer. She had long ago learned to silence that voice, but somehow found herself sprinting down the alley on a sprained ankle in three inch heels. The acrobatics were second nature, muscle memory, and in moments she'd vaulted and tackled the man, snapping his neck and rolling to her feet with less grace than was usual.

"Nice," the archer said, eyes a little wide, but she brushed off his compliment in favor of forcing the door closed. Debt paid. They were square, and next time a body had an arrow sticking through it, it wouldn't be because she needed her ass covered.

"So what?" she panted, and jammed a wooden pallet under the handle of the access door. She worked the discarded crowbar in for extra leverage. "You expect me to thank you?"

"Don't," he advised. "They don't get to kill my mark. That's all."

_Liar_. He knew he needed her help to get out of the mess he'd made.

She leaned against the dumpster on the pretense of checking her clips and counting bullets (seven left in each gun, she counted as she shot), shifting her weight to the ankle that wasn't throbbing sharp needles of pain up her leg.

"Why'd you take that guy out?" he asked.

Well, since they were being honest.

"I need you alive if I'm going to interrogate you."

The corner of his mouth twitched, as if he wanted to smile.

Two more men appeared on the fire escape. She shot one through the chest as the archer loosed an arrow. It imbedded itself in the brick wall instead of the German with the gun, and Natalia scoffed at his aim and gave a soft "Ha!" of triumph. The archer's eyebrows drew together as he threw her an annoyed glance.

The wall, much like the window before, exploded. Tiny fragments of masonry skipped down the alley and pinged off the dumpster in the wake of the pyrotechnics.

"At your leisure, sweetheart," he drawled sarcastically, a smug little grin playing across his lips. "We're pinned down. We've got time."

He wasn't wrong. The Germans alternated shouting at them to surrender and firing short volleys of bullets down the alley.

It wasn't really an interrogation if the interrogate-ee was willing, but anything was better than watching the archer bask in his sense of superiority. She had a strong urge to snap his stupid archaic bow and teach him a lesson about one-upping the Black Widow.

"Care to tell me how I ended up with a kill order from S.H.I.E.L.D.?" she asked instead. She kept her tone neutral, but only just. Something about the archer's informal manner and familiar tone rankled. And he'd called her _sweetheart_.

"Barcelona," he replied easily. "You took out one of ours."

She vaguely recalled being in Barcelona a year ago, laid out on a rooftop with a sniper rifle, but didn't remember seeing the S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia on that particular mission.

"He was protecting the Prime Minister," the archer prompted.

Ah, the asshole bodyguard who'd almost cost her the assassination. He must have been undercover. She'd been reprimanded, and none too gently, for needing a second shot to finish the job.

"He jumped in and took the bullet," she replied with a shrug. "He wasn't my mark."

The archer lifted an eyebrow.

"That doesn't get you off the hook. I'm still supposed to take you out."

Obviously. She didn't dignify that with a response.

"Who told you where to find me?" she tried next, curious as to just how much he'd give away without coercion.

"Classified."

"Was your contact passing information from inside the KGB?"

"Redacted."

He was smiling that stupid shit-eating grin and twanging his bowstring, and she realized too late her mistake. She was giving him everything, telling him what information he could use as leverage.

So maybe that was an overreaction. He didn't seem to have any ill intentions, other than to antagonize her for his own amusement, but that in itself was disconcerting. He was supposed to be appealing for a stay of execution, pissing himself out of fear, running as far and as fast as possible in the opposite direction.

"Blow up the car," she snapped, and ducked around him to stand in the middle of the alley. He was too self-assured, too cavalier. She hadn't sensed it at first beneath the banter and easy smiles, but he was dangerous. Should've shot him when she had the chance.

She got off three shots at the group from the car. The first two dropped a pair of gunmen, but the third glanced harmlessly off the hood of the car.

"Think you missed, sweetheart!"

She flattened herself against the alley wall and lifted a middle finger at the archer while the Germans returned her assault. He took his shot and the car jumped into the air as the arrow detonated; flames lit up the dark alley and the gas tank ignited with a second, much more concussive explosion.

Natalia wasn't entirely sure the fire had been intentional - the archer had frozen to watch with his bow half lowered - but the distraction served its purpose. The car flattened one assailant and she shot the remaining two before they remembered they were in the middle of a firefight.

She paused, muscles taut and one eye on the archer, waiting for another attack. No one appeared in the open window four floors up, the access door to the alley remained barricaded, and the only sound that reached her was the soft rush of flames as the car burned itself out.

She found herself unexpectedly torn about whether or not to turn her guns on the archer. They'd put up a surprisingly good fight together, outnumbered and outgunned, with the only real injury between them her sprained ankle.

But what could happen if she let him go? He had made it clear that he still intended to carry out his orders, calling her his mark and overlooking the fact that she hadn't killed the S.H.I.E.L.D agent on purpose. It had been so long since she'd fought with anyone who could keep up with her, she almost felt regret over the idea of taking him out.

She didn't have a choice. She'd get the information she needed from him and make his death quick. He'd earned that much respect, at least. She wouldn't draw it out unless he forced her.

She carefully slid her heels off for better traction in the snow, toes long since numb. She wanted the knife strapped to her leg, but couldn't think of a subtle way to hike the dress up and retrieve it. A gunshot at this range would cause more damage than she wanted to inflict at the moment. Hand-to-hand first, and she'd use the knife if she needed to inspire a little cooperation.

"Not bad, Red," the archer called appreciatively. She watched as he stretched his left arm up and rolled his shoulder. She'd found her weak point.

She was on him before her failure to reply registered. She gripped his wrist and kicked out his knees from behind, wrenching his arm up and back as he fell. She even managed to glance his head against the corner of the dumpster. She rolled him and pinned him, his left arm stuck awkwardly behind his back but the shoulder decidedly _not_ dislocated, despite her best effort.

He glared up at her with slightly glazed eyes, blood sliding from his hairline as he tried to shake off the hit.

"Now," she began sweetly, gun pressed beneath his chin, "you're going to tell me who's been passing you information."

"Fuck you," he snarled. Something in his expression shifted. His eyes cleared and went a shade darker, the mouth that had been so quick to smile curled into a sneer at one corner. She felt him tense beneath her. She hadn't seen the man S.H.I.E.L.D. had sent to kill her, until now.

She fired a warning shot into the ground near his head. He winced a little, but otherwise remained stoic. She hadn't really expected such an elementary intimidation tactic to work.

"Try again," she suggested.

"Tarasov," he said quietly. He relaxed, shoulders sagging, but she was too well-trained to buy the ruse of him giving up. "Just Tarasov. Didn't catch his first name."

The name meant nothing to her, but it was possible the man held a lower position than her in the organization. Or it was possible the archer had made it up.

"Anyone else?" she asked. She expected him to pull the same trick as before, giving up the first answer easily only to hold out on subsequent questions, but he surprised her.

"Dmitriyev."

Oh, he _really_ surprised her. Shock rippled through her chest, unpleasant and sharp. She hadn't expected her handler's name to be next on his list of informants. He shouldn't know any names at all, only code names and aliases. She gripped a handful of his collar and pulled him closer.

"You're lying," she told him, searching his face for a tell, a tic, any hint that he wasn't being truthful. The implications of her handler being allied with S.H.I.E.L.D...

"I'm lying," he agreed. He smirked and smashed his forehead against hers.

Pain blinded her for a long moment; she felt the archer push her away and heard his boots scrape against the ice and gravel as he scrambled to his feet. She bit back a pained noise and forced her eyes open. He was standing over her, bow raised in his right hand with one of her guns gripped in his left. He swung the bow down in an arc, aiming for her head, but she rolled away and plunged a hand under her dress for the knife.

How did he keep catching her off guard? And why hadn't either of them managed to kill the other yet? She had the skills, and he was obviously more than capable, so why had they been dancing around the inevitable for the past half-hour?

He swung the bow again, but this time she sprang forward to meet the assault. She dodged around the bow and under his arm, bringing the knife up for a quick, precise slash.

She darted a safe distance away and watched the realization set it. His scandalized expression only lasted a moment before he masked the emotion, but the way he stared a beat too long at the severed bowstring was enough reward. She shot him a triumphant little smile and twirled her knife.

If she could infuriate him enough, she knew from experience, his attacks would turn sloppy and she'd be at an advantage. It was the only tactic that came to mind. She wasn't accustomed to being evenly matched in the field.

He lifted the gun and she spun away, ducking behind the dumpster as he fired two quick rounds into the brick of the alley. She had a suspicion that he still wasn't trying to kill her; so far he hadn't missed a shot, and she didn't see any reason for him to be less accurate with a gun than a bow. Maybe he was venting his frustration by wasting her bullets.

She peeked around the corner of the dumpster, immediately pulling back as a third shot pinged off the metal. She moved to the opposite end and presented a target again; there was only one round left in the gun. The last shot went wide, driving into the snow, and she charged. He tossed the gun away and ran to meet her.

_Again_ he'd caught her off guard. Natalia realized, too late, that he'd been trying to draw her out, letting her think she held the advantage. Who the fuck had trained the archer?

She came up short and dropped into a defensive stance, blocking his jabs and kicks and slashing with her knife. She landed a few decent hits, a solid kick to the ribs and another to the kidney, without getting any new bruises herself. The knife held him off, until it didn't. He took a shallow cut to the chest, but pushed in close enough to grab her wrist and force her back against the wall, where he leered down at her, panting and bleeding.

"Drop it," he ground out, and when she didn't comply he slammed her wrist against the brick until she let the knife fall to the ground.

She hadn't felt real fear on a mission in years. She always had a way out, a new trick, weapons hidden in inconspicuous places. She wasn't accustomed to running into adversaries who could match her skill-for-skill.

As she looked up at the archer, all cold grey eyes and solid muscle, she thought perhaps she understood how her marks felt at the end. That instant when she let the cover slip, became the Black Widow, and ended them. Had the archer's persona in the beginning been a mask? She'd certainly been taken in. It was so easy to judge him as an idiot for blowing their missions, laugh at the bow and arrows. He was so damn _likeable_.

A reflection of firelight from the burning car, a faint glimmer in the snow, caught her attention. Her second gun.

She didn't like to fight dirty, but the archer hadn't left her much choice.

She drove a knee into his crotch and slammed the heel of her hand against his nose. He crumpled and she ran, scooping up the gun and turning back only once she'd reached the relative safety of the fire. She paused for a moment, watching the archer struggle to gain his feet, listening to his incoherent swearing.

When he finally looked up, saw her silhouetted in the flames, she'd shoot him.

Or she could forget the stupid theatrics and get the fuck out of there before he pinned her down again. She considered the situation from another angle. If accidentally killing one S.H.I.E.L.D. agent had set the archer on her, what would purposefully killing an agent of his caliber earn her? Not a question she wanted answered.

She moved into the street and headed north toward the brighter, friendlier part of the city. Ride the Metro, lose herself in crowds, shake the archer and get out of Germany. She couldn't go back to her hotel room; he probably knew where she'd been staying. She'd have to make do with five bullets, no shoes, and a dress that suggested she was open for business. Not the worst situation she'd found herself in, to be honest.

She stuck to the slush on the side of the street rather than the snowy sidewalk, so as not to leave footprints. He could track her, no doubt about that, but why should she make it easy? For all his skill, the archer could still be outsmarted. She'd just have to actually _try_ on this one. It wasn't easy to admit, but perhaps she'd gotten a tiny bit complacent with her training. When was the last time a mission presented a real challenge?

She paused after what she judged to be an adequate distance, about two miles, and observed the quiet stretch of street. She wasn't as familiar with Munich as she'd like, and quite frankly was a little puzzled why she hadn't found the Metro station yet.

She moved on slowly, shivering now with spent adrenaline and cold, reading street names and shop windows to try and orient herself.

An arrow landed with a muffled _whump_ in the snow at her feet.

She didn't visibly flinch, but blood began to pound heavy in her ears as she traced the trajectory of the arrow with her eyes.

"Think you missed!" she called, throwing the archer's taunt back at him as she scanned the opposite rooftop for a shadow or sign of movement. Nothing caught her eye, but she raised the gun anyway. He was up there somewhere. He'd make a mistake and show her his location, if she was patient.

Pain lanced down her leg and she staggered, surprise overriding her training and bringing the gun down to aim at the pavement instead of the rooftop. She found an arrow - it wasn't really an arrow - stuck in her thigh. The shaft was short, no more than six inches, and ended in four thin prongs, which had embedded themselves in her leg. Protruding from the middle of the shaft was an impossibly small needle.

_Shit._

She spun wildly and spotted him. The son-of-a-bitch and his bow were across the street, slightly behind and to the right, the complete opposite of where she expected him to be.

She pulled the arrow out, wincing at the sharp pain that pulsed down her leg, and ran. She made it halfway down the block before the street swung to one side and she found herself on her hands and knees, breathing hard through an uncomfortable wave of nausea.

_Focus, Natalia._

She forced herself back to her feet, shaking and dizzy, one hand braced against a brick storefront as she struggled away from the archer. The leg he'd shot had gone numb.

It didn't make sense, how the first arrow clearly came from up high and in front but then he was behind her. A second archer? An illusion? A trick shot? Nobody was that good.

She went down again, still more frustrated than afraid. Her vision blurred heavily for a moment before resolving.

If S.H.I.E.L.D sent another agent after her, she'd take that one out, too.

Decision made, she pushed up on one elbow and fired a shot toward the archer. Glass shattered nearby, and he advanced slowly down the middle of the street, unaffected. She blinked hard and took two more shots as he passed under a street lamp. His silhouette stretched long with the light behind him and he kept walking, slow and steady, as if he had the rest of the night to reach her.

Realistically, she knew she'd been neutralized.

Why hadn't he killed her yet? He could have completed his mission ten times over by now.

Her vision blurred again and the archer split into three dark forms, wavering and shimmering as they advanced. She made another stubborn, ineffectual attempt to run, dragging herself through the snow on hands and knees as the archer watched. She hadn't taken him for the sadistic type, the kind to watch his mark die a protracted death by poison. Whatever had been in the needle was more than a sedative, she felt sure, and it was catching up to her.

The street and buildings took on a dreamlike quality, jumping and blurring as her head spun. Her focus faded until she found herself laying curled in the snow, unsure why anxiety was choking her and making her finger twitch on the trigger of her gun.

Movement caught her attention and she turned glazed eyes to watch the archer, a dark presence drawing progressively closer until he stood over her. She tried again to lift the Glock and put a bullet through him, but her arm had gone numb and there was a muffled ringing in her ears, and suddenly the gun wasn't in her hand anymore. He straddled her and forced her wrists together, and she watched dazedly as he tied her hands with a length of thin cord. Bowstring, she realized, and felt sick.

He pinned her bound wrists above her head with an exasperated huff and leaned in close, his breath hot and sticky as he panted above her. Blood smeared his forehead, ran freely across his lips and down his chin from a broken nose. A cruel smile twisted his lips and his teeth were smeared with blood too.

Raw panic rose in her chest and she renewed her escape attempts, writhing ineffectually beneath him. He gripped her jaw and forced her to look at him, his eyes unnaturally black and predatory, blood dripping steadily from his chin to her chest and burning her skin, and some small lucid part of her mind whispered that it was just the drugs, the archer wasn't _this_, but the rational voice faded and was replaced with a high-pitched whimper and echos of _please_ and _nyet_, weaknesses she recognized as her own voice and couldn't seem to stop.

His words were a dark growl in her ear as the drugs dragged her under.

"I don't miss, sweetheart."

_..._


	3. I Liked You Better Unconscious

**Chapter 2: ****I Liked You Better Unconscious**

"Natalia?"

A hand rested heavily on her shoulder and she flinched, instinctively bracing for a hit that never came. Anxiety coiled in her stomach. Fingers on her throat, but they didn't squeeze and restrict her breathing, only lingered firmly for a moment. The hand moved to stroke her hair.

"Natalia."

The hands and the voice were gentle, a novelty. She felt warm and at the same time felt nothing at all. Nothing hurt, no injuries to catalog. Tentatively, experimentally, she relaxed and leaned into the soft touch. A little contented sigh slipped out before she could stop it. She didn't feel threatened. She could sleep again.

"Uh-uh, not going there."

The hand pulled away, taking some measure of warmth with it. Her head throbbed dully.

"Wake up, right now."

An order, more familiar. Consequences usually followed if she ignored an order.

It was a monumental effort, but she pulled back from the allure of more sleep and forced her eyes open. When her vision cleared she found herself on a sofa, covered with a fleece blanket, her left ankle propped up high and wrapped in an Ace bandage.

Odd. When was the last time anyone had taken care of her injuries, much less thought to throw a blanket over her?

"Hey."

She turned toward the source of the voice and caught a quick glimpse of the man who had spoken. The room started spinning and bile rose in her throat; she swallowed hard and breathed deep, pressing her eyes closed until the sensation passed. When she felt steady enough, she tried opening her eyes again.

The room was mostly blurred, faint outlines of furniture in the shadows and a dim glow from a lamp in the corner. The man was sat on a low table directly in front of her, dried blood in his hair and a bruise shadowing his left eye, his nose swollen and apparently broken. He waited patiently while she searched his face and struggled to remember; she watched his eyebrows draw together and his forehead wrinkle as he stared back.

She noticed little aches now, the bandaged ankle and her leg and forearm, and her body began to feel heavy. Her head pounded harder. What hell had they been through?

He reached out a hand, slowly, and she recoiled without quite knowing why. His hand dropped and rested on his knee instead.

"Do you know where we are?"

It was beginning to concern her, the not knowing.

Apartment? Hotel? He probably wanted her to say a city or country, but she couldn't seem to think of any. She could hear guns and see fire and feel snow, but none of it coalesced into anything meaningful.

"Barcelona," she said at last, as the man's voice echoed the same in her mind, although the context escaped her. Her tongue felt thick, her words oddly slurred and heavily accented.

"Oh, God," he groaned, and raked a hand through his hair. He stood and began walking the strip of carpet between the table and sofa. "That shit fried her brain. Nice fucking job, Barton."

Watching him pace made her feel sick and dizzy again. She closed her eyes and buried her face in the pillows.

"_Nonono_, come on, try again."

He gave her shoulder an insistent little shake.

"Moscow," she mumbled into the pillow. Familiar, but something told her it wasn't right.

"Close. One more time. Mmmm...?"

The humming grated on her nerves, even though she realized he was trying to be nice and give her a hint. Her mind wanted to remember, but she was too slow to catch the little shimmers of memory. She settled for running through every M city in Europe, in alphabetical order, because maybe the exercise would jump start her brain.

_Madrid, Manchester, Marseille._

She'd missed some.

_Milan, Minsk, Monaco._

Not Moscow, Moscow was wrong.

"Munich," she said aloud, lifting her head as a tiny piece of the puzzle slid into place.

She had a quick glimpse of guns and passports and a thick file stamped with Cyrillic script. A mission.

"Bingo!" the man exclaimed happily. He dropped down to sit on the table again. "Give the lady a prize."

"_Bozhe moi_, shut up," she growled. That annoying feeling, the sensation that everything waited just out of reach, intensified.

They didn't give her partners. She hadn't been trained to work with a partner. Slowly, carefully, she rolled over to stare at him again. The room didn't spin this time.

She could clearly see the man in her mind's eye, firing arrows and covering her. Why arrows?

_Think you missed, sweetheart._

The way he delivered the term of endearment, not as a term of endearment at all, but sarcastic and with a slight mocking edge to his tone...

_I don't miss, sweetheart._

Her memory resolved in a rush that immediately eased her headache. The archer blowing her mission and matching her skill for skill, his stupid banter and cocky idiot smile, and the altogether less pleasant side of his personality, the man who had watched as she dragged herself through the snow and fired desperate rounds from her gun. The realization must have showed in her expression, because his eyes went wide.

"Easy," he whispered, cautiously raising his hands in the universal gesture for surrender. "You're okay."

She flexed her wrists and felt the length of bowstring cut into her skin, a faint uncomfortable pressure, the pain dulled by the drugs still working through her bloodstream. He was close, too close to pass up the opportunity.

She laced her fingers and clenched her hands together, threw off the blanket, and swung for his broken nose. He blocked with his arm and caught her under the elbow with his free hand to save her falling off the couch.

Her equilibrium was off, everything tilted weirdly to the right. Attacking him now was impulsive and sloppy, she realized that, but he was _right there_ and she should still be able to take him out.

"Feel better now?" he asked, one eyebrow arched and an amused grin playing across his lips. "Got it out of your system?"

Fuck him.

She lunged and went for a bite, missed, and settled instead for throwing herself off the couch to tackle him. The table flipped and they slid off backwards to land in a heap on the floor.

She felt like vomiting again, her vision blurring and an odd ringing in her ears, but she squeezed her eyes shut to ward off the feeling and hooked her arm around his neck. She'd choke him out. Once she had him unconscious - _not unconscious, kill him, he should be dead_ - she could get the hell out and regroup, find somewhere safe to sleep off the rest of the drugs.

Her efforts seemed to be working in reverse. The sensation of his fingers scrabbling against her arm grew fainter until she felt numb again. She woke shivering with her cheek pressed into the musty carpet.

Only a moment of confusion this time before she recalled the who and where and why of her situation. Well, the why was still lost on her. She should be dead. She shouldn't have woken up at all, much less wrapped in a blanket with her ankle taken care of.

She pushed up on her elbows and searched the room for the archer; he stood a safe distance away, lingering in the shadows behind her, rubbing his throat with one hand and breathing a bit harder than normal. She hadn't been out that long, then.

_Almost had him,_ she chastised herself. It wouldn't be so easy to surprise him next time. He had underestimated her because of the drugs, but his guard was up now. She'd have to fight dirty again.

"Hey, you need to take it easy," he warned.

She ignored him, moving slowly to avoid making the room spin. She drew her knees up and pressed her palms flat against the carpet, intending to stand and attack, but even that small effort left her lightheaded and panting.

"I fixed your arm earlier. I need to look and see if we pulled the stitches. Is that okay?"

Why should she have stitches?

She stared blankly down at her arms, surprised to find that her dress had vanished, replaced instead with a grey pullover and, when she looked back to investigate further, a pair of too-large plaid sleeping pants. Her forearm did sting, and after a moment she recalled the archer shooting the window out in the hotel room, pulling a piece of glass from her arm, although she hadn't bothered to give the injury a second thought.

Anger flared sharp and hot in her chest, not because he'd taken the liberty of undressing her, but because he had the audacity to take care of her at all. His mission was to kill, not capture and interrogate. Besides, it didn't make sense to sew up your mark's wounds and wrap sprains. Open cuts and inflamed joints were an advantage in an interrogation, easy points to inflict pain without causing excessive damage. The archer should know better.

"Okay," she agreed quietly. She watched him over her shoulder, avoided tensing her muscles while he drew closer so she wouldn't give herself away. She threw him the wide-eyed, pouty expression she usually saved for missions.

"It's okay," he intoned, well within range now. He offered a soft, reassuring smile.

She lashed out, thrusting her right leg up and out with all the force she could manage, aiming for his crotch.

Her kick fell low, reflexes slower than she'd anticipated; her foot only skimmed the inside of his thigh and he caught her ankle firmly with both hands, jerking her leg up at an awkward angle and forcing her onto her back. A little trace of anger flashed behind his eyes as he glared down at her.

"Swear to God, one more nut shot and I'll break your leg," he threatened.

She seriously doubted it.

She twisted to the right and kicked with her left this time. As expected, he dropped her ankle and jumped out of range with a scowl.

"Liar," she taunted.

"You're just _mean_," he shot back disbelievingly. "Could you maybe not be a terrible person for five minutes?"

"You drugged me, tied me up, and now you're holding me hostage," she countered. What did he expect?

"Okay, first, it was supposed to be a tranquilizer dart," he began, a slight defensive edge to his tone. "R&D didn't tell me what was in the damn thing, and it was for my next mission so I hadn't read the dossier yet. I had it on me and it seemed like a good idea. I didn't know it was some kind of neuro-hallucinogenic-toxin-shit, so...sorry. Second, I tied you up because you _never stop fighting_. I didn't want my ass kicked again."

"I still kicked your ass," she pointed out.

"That's open for debate, since all you accomplished was passing out on the floor. And you're not a hostage."

"This is what I do to my hostages." She held up her bound hands to demonstrate. "I feel like a hostage."

"Well, you're not. I just want to talk."

What could they possibly have to talk about? His motivation was lost on her. He hadn't fought back, hadn't even restrained her thoroughly. He didn't seem to want intel, or names, or locations of KGB bases. His lack of interest puzzled her and made her head throb.

He approached again, slowly and cautiously, and this time she couldn't find the energy to lash out. What was the point, with her reflexes too dulled to be effective? She slid back to lean against the overturned table instead, and watched relief flit across his features once he made the connection that he'd finally worn her down.

"Clint Barton," he said. He crouched down in front of her and stuck out a hand. She turned away and fixed her gaze stubbornly on the lamp in the corner. He had her at a temporary disadvantage, but that didn't mean she was required to make friends.

"_Mean_," he repeated emphatically, but he smiled as he said it and she felt sure he didn't take offense at her refusing his introduction. "Can I check your arm?"

She chewed her lip and considered him. His hands had been both surprisingly gentle and violent enough to leave bruises. She had no reason to trust him, but aside from drugging her and running her down in the street, she didn't have a reason not to trust him, either. God, she was tired.

"Fine," she agreed, and held out her arms. He hesitated, clearly still suspicious, but when she didn't immediately wallop him he scooted closer and sat beside her.

"If you'd calm down, I'd untie you," he said. One hand closed firmly over her wrists, over the bowstring, while the other pushed up the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She didn't believe him. He could bargain and bribe all he wanted, but she recognized skill when she saw it, and skilled assassins didn't untie their marks.

"You took my dress," she accused, watching with wary eyes as he pulled the bandage back. A surprisingly neat row of sutures held together the cut from the broken glass.

"You were about two minutes away from hypothermic," he replied. "Had to do something."

"Why?"

His hands stilled, confusion clouding his features.

"Why didn't I leave you to freeze to death in the street?"

"You were supposed to kill me," she reminded him. "You don't seem to want to get your hands dirty, so that's as good a way as any other."

"That's not how you take out a mark," he replied shortly. Apparently satisfied with the state of the stitches, he taped the bandage back down and pushed himself to his feet. "Not how _I_ take out marks, anyway."

_Oh, well, Mr. Moral Compass._

She rolled her eyes.

"So dragging them home to your shitty hotel room is somehow more efficient?"

"It's an apartment. We're in a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house."

_Seriously_? She didn't bother to mask her incredulous expression. Clint Barton: unmitigated idiot. Who brought their mark straight into their safe house? He might have been serious about untying her, after all.

"Someone's going to be pissed at you," she guessed. Barton shrugged, seemingly unconcerned.

"Someone at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s always pissed at me. Come on, back on the couch."

He reached down to help her up, and there was no point pretending she couldn't use the extra support. She let him pull her to her feet, surprised when he took most of her weight and brought her up slowly. He gave her a moment to steady herself, then braced one arm around her shoulders.

She ran through a series of possible escape attempts as they covered the stretch of carpet to the sofa - sweep his legs, break his arm, smash his nose again - but nothing struck her as very promising. The glimpse of the city through the gap in the curtains told her they were five, maybe six, stories up. She'd probably kill herself trying to make it down the stairs, and Barton would just catch her anyway.

He didn't dump her unceremoniously back on the sofa as she expected, but carefully lowered her down to lean against the stack of pillows at one end. Bed pillows, she realized, and they smelled like him, leather and sweat and spicy aftershave. How long had he been camped out in the safe house?

She studied him intently, trying to determine his motivation. Safe houses were supposed to be in-and-out locations, not long term operation bases. She added it to Barton's list of presumably broken protocols. It didn't make what he was attempting to accomplish any clearer.

He threw the blanket across her lap, then hooked his arm under her knees and swung her legs up.

"You're a really terrible assassin," she told him. "S.H.I.E.L.D. should fire you."

"Yeah? Look where you landed yourself, sweetheart." He grinned and shoved a throw pillow under her ankle. "What's the KGB penalty for blowing an op?"

He was joking, but the idea made her feel nauseous again. The consequences of screwing up a mission were endurable if unpleasant, but once they found out she'd been taken in and held by an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D...

She shuddered and drew her knees up, clenched her hands into fists to stop them shaking. She was usually left to her own devices on missions, but there were eyes everywhere. Her handlers would hear about the archer and her weakness in not killing him, and most importantly they would know that she spent time alone with him, presumably being interrogated but possibly playing double agent.

They'd tear her apart trying to learn if she passed him information. Automatic wipe and reprogramming. She wouldn't get lucky enough to resist and make it out again. Last time had only been a fluke.

She let the thin sliver of hope she'd been childish enough to harbor for the past eighteen months slip away. Barton undoubtedly had her flash drive - that dress kept her tits pressed so tightly together there was no way she'd lost it fighting or rolling around in the snow - but there wasn't much point stealing it back from him. Best to resign herself to the inevitable now. Escaping the Red Room's influence had been an impossible idea.

"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"What is this?" she asked bluntly.

The tiny glimmer of another impossible idea came to her. S.H.I.E.L.D had whole teams of scientists and doctors. S.H.I.E.L.D. had secret locations and bunkers and security protocols the KGB had never been able to pin down or crack. If they couldn't find her, they couldn't wipe her.

Clint Barton wanted something from her, and once she found out what it was, she'd bargain her way into a S.H.I.E.L.D. holding facility. It wouldn't be difficult to convince him to take her in, especially since he seemed so averse to putting an arrow through her.

"Mission's over, okay?" He flipped the coffee table upright and sat again. "I've read your file, I've been shadowing you for two weeks, and I don't think you deserve the kill order."

She deserved that kill order a hundred times over. They both knew it. The fact that he'd been following her for a fortnight didn't surprise her as much as it should have.

"Look, I just want to talk. Why don't we have a truce? No fighting, no super-spy manipulation, we'll just be honest with each other. I might not tell you everything, but what I tell you will be the truth. Deal?"

Sure, that made him sound completely trustworthy.

"So you'll lie by omission," she guessed.

"_No_. Shit, Coulson made this look easy." He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes and made an exasperated growling sound.

"Made _what_ look easy?" she asked, half amused.

"Recruitment," he replied. "I want you to join S.H.I.E.L.D."

She openly gaped at him, sure that this was usually done with a little more finesse than just tossing an offer on the table. If he wanted her to come back with him so badly, maybe she didn't want to use S.H.I.E.L.D. as a sanctuary after all.

"_S.H.I.E.L.D._ doesn't want me to join S.H.I.E.L.D.," she reminded him. "S.H.I.E.L.D. wants me dead, remember?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. felt that way about me once, too. Just talk to me, please?"

Maybe if her head was clearer, if she wasn't so bone-weary and exhausted, he'd be dead. She couldn't pinpoint exactly why, but _goddammit_, she trusted him. Partially, at least. She was so desperate for a way out, anything looked better than the alternative.

Still, she couldn't afford to be reckless. She averted her eyes and struggled to organize her thoughts, formulate a line of questioning to ascertain his motives. It was an elementary exercise that should have taken her all of fifteen seconds, but working through a possible line of questioning, imagining his answers, and thinking of ways to manipulate him seemed to be beyond her. She felt slow and stupid, her focus sharp one moment and drifting the next.

"What did you mean when you said you wouldn't tell me everything?" she asked at last. Straightforward wasn't the tactical way to go, but it made the situation less frustrating.

He sat a little straighter and visibly brightened, apparently encouraged by her interest.

"I can't tell you the really classified stuff, and I know you'll ask the pain-in-the-ass questions I'm not cleared to answer. Then you'll get all suspicious and kick my butt again."

"I'm already suspicious," she assured him.

"Then it's my job to make you not-suspicious."

He stood and crossed to a chair by the window, retrieving a black duffel bag. It hit the table with a surprisingly solid _thunk_. She watched him rummage for a moment before he pulled out a manilla file embossed with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo and 'Level 4'.

"Here," he said, and thrust a sheet of thick white paper under her nose. "This is what I injected you with."

It was filled with chemical formulas, the names of several different compounds stretching across the page in a jumble of letters that made her head ache. She recognized a couple, most were foreign to her, and there were a few she felt sure S.H.I.E.L.D. had concocted in their lab specifically for Barton's next mission. She'd been trained extensively in the use and recognition of poisons and sedatives, and could usually figure out a compound's function by its chemical makeup, but her mind was largely blank as she skimmed the muddle of letters and numbers.

"This doesn't make sense right now," she admitted, and passed the paper back. If he was attempting to build rapport, she grudgingly conceded, he was off to a good start.

"The point is, there was a lot of nasty shit in that arrowhead. Sit there and rest until it works through your system," he ordered gently. "I want to do this right. I don't want you to agree to anything if you're still out of it."

There was a catch somewhere, and he definitely wanted something. Nobody was that nice. If their roles were reversed, she'd use the opportunity to badger ever piece of S.H.I.E.L.D. intel she could from him while his defenses were down.

"If I go to the kitchen, will you stay?" Barton asked. She watched intently as he slid the paper back into the file, but didn't manage to glimpse anything interesting. "I'll still be able to see you."

"Fine," she agreed. He stuck the file back in the bag and pulled out a second identical one.

"You can read this while I'm gone. It's Level 6, but you probably know all the stuff in there, anyway."

She could guess what was in the file, but took it and flipped it open just to be sure. Several grainy black-and-white photos fell into her lap, the shots off center and some blurred. If she tilted her head, they sort of looked like her.

"This is the best S.H.I.E.L.D. could do?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"You're hard to pin down," he shrugged. "I'm the first one who's been able to stay on you for more than ten minutes at a time."

She took it as a compliment, and also a testament to the shoddy training S.H.I.E.L.D. apparently found acceptable.

Barton kept one eye on her as he went to the kitchen. He flipped the light and she saw that the kitchen was only separated from the rest of the apartment by a bar.

"Stay," he warned one final time, before turning his back and opening a pair of cabinets.

She considered making a break for it just to piss him off, but the allure of the S.H.I.E.L.D. file won out in the end. If they knew something important and she missed her opportunity because she was playing stupid games with Clint Barton... Well, she'd been trained better than that.

The first page was a surprisingly accurate set of statistics. They knew her birthday and height and weight, give or take a few inches and pounds, they had an incomplete list of languages she spoke, another list of combat and martial arts styles she was proficient in, and a short column detailing her preferred weapons. She flipped to the second page and skimmed a chronological list of assassinations, infiltrations, and undercover jobs S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed to think she had committed. There were more than a few gaps in their intel there, and one incorrectly attributed bombing in Kiev. The kill order Barton had referenced was an actual signed piece of paper - _Nicholas J Fury, Director_ - and endorsed with the World Security Council seal. That was the meat of the file, she supposed, but she found what she was looking for in the very back.

Three pages, stapled in one corner and printed front-and-back, detailing the Red Room's training program. It wasn't as thorough as she'd been stupid enough to hope. There was only one brief sentence under the heading Mind Control: _Operatives possibly subjected to methods of reprogramming to ensure compliance_.

Well, they weren't wrong.

She leered down at the file, fighting back the impulse to fling it across the room for its uselessness.

"Find anything interesting?"

She startled and glanced sharply up to find Barton standing at the foot of the sofa, a steaming ceramic mug in each hand. The fact that he'd managed to sneak up on her unnerved her, but she blamed it on the drugs dulling her reflexes.

"Your intel's shit," she replied, and tossed the file on the table.

"Correction, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intel is shit. _My_ intel is flawless." He held out one of the mugs, inviting her to take it. He gave her that infuriatingly cocky smile again, all smug and self-assured. "Breakfast tea, milk and three teaspoons of sugar. I think you've underestimated my surveillance skills."

Anxiety constricted her chest, but she forced the feeling down. Barton excelled at his job, he was dangerous, and it was an easy thing to forget when his attitude and mannerisms were so relaxed. Of course he'd been observing closely enough to learn how she liked her tea. What worried her was that she hadn't once realized he was watching.

"Close enough," she returned coolly, even though he was completely right. She reached forward to take the mug but he pulled it back and set both drinks on the table instead. He drew a knife from the black bag, and when she tensed, he huffed an exasperated sigh.

"I'm untying you," he informed her, and sat beside her on the sofa, one hand held out for her wrists. "And I'm probably going to regret it."

She held still while he slid the knife between her hands and under the bowstring. It would take approximately three seconds to disarm him and drive the knife into his chest, but that wasn't the way to go anymore. There was a miniscule possibility she might accept his offer and tag along back to S.H.I.E.L.D., and she'd have to play nice. Killing him would get her into a holding facility, but freedom to come and go as she pleased was more appealing. It would be easier to leave once she got the help she wanted from them.

He worked the knife back and forth until the bowstring snapped, then gently peeled the cord away. The skin underneath was rubbed raw, but not broken or bleeding. She jerked her hands away and shoved them in the front pocket of his pullover.

"You're welcome," he said, not unkindly, but obviously expecting a little gratitude. Being friendly with him still seemed like a stretch, so she kept her mouth shut.

When she remained stubbornly silent he tossed the knife back in the bag and lifted his mug from the coffee table.

"So. You know my mission. What were you trying to accomplish tonight?"

"Classified," she shrugged, and retrieved her tea. Heat radiated from the mug, just shy of burning her fingers. She ignored the nagging voice in the back of her mind telling her it was probably poisoned and took a cautious sip. It scorched her tongue, but was otherwise perfect.

"What's on this?" Barton asked, and held up her flash drive.

"Nothing that concerns you," she replied in a tone of forced calm. She curled into the corner of the sofa, legs folded to one side as she sipped her tea again and pretended not to watch him. He frowned and slid the flash drive into the front pocket of his jeans.

"Look, I'm trying to make conversation here. You've got to give me something. You agreed to talk."

"No, you said that _you_ wanted to talk. So talk. My part of the deal was to stop actively trying to murder you."

He made a frustrated, disgusted noise and slid away to the opposite end of the sofa, where he quietly seethed and drank his coffee. The silence stretched until he put his empty mug back on the table with a soft clunk. When he spoke, his voice was calm, no hint of the earlier irritation seeping into the words.

"Why didn't you kill Drechsler three nights ago?" She watched him from the corner of her eye, but her mug was empty too and she couldn't use tea as an excuse to ignore him. "The street was clear, no witnesses besides his wife and kid. You could've taken out all three in an instant."

"Why didn't you kill me three nights ago?" she countered. She felt more alert now, her mind sharper and focused, less foggy. Almost confident enough to work through the S.H.I.E.L.D. recruitment conversation. "The timing was off," she added grudgingly, because he _had_ been nice where he didn't have to be. "Tonight was better."

"Bullshit. Tell me why, Natalia."

She had a decision to make. If she wanted in with S.H.I.E.L.D., the truth would probably win him over. The truth would also make her seem weak and vulnerable. Barton wasn't scared of her, anyway.

"His daughter," she said, and couldn't help the little trace of venom that slipped into her tone. She was still irritated that the girl had prevented her making the kill. "She didn't need to see her father shot."

Barton smiled, and she immediately regretted answering his stupid questions.

"That's why I didn't take you out tonight. It wasn't the Black Widow who spared Drechsler's family, it was Natalia, and I think she deserves a second chance."

"What if I don't want a second chance?" she asked coolly, and watched his expression go sour. He must have thought this was going to be easy.

"Oh, come on!" He launched himself off the sofa and began pacing, frustration evident behind his tone. "I was never happy doing this shit, dodging INTERPOL and the FBI and S.H.I.E.L.D., wondering if I'd get a bullet between the eyes before my next birthday or end up on death row."

"That's the difference between you and I. I don't need a second chance. The Black Widow doesn't get caught."

"Well wake up, sweetheart, because _I_ caught you. You lose, point for Hawkeye."

She opened her mouth to retaliate, but couldn't settle on a counter-argument. She had, in fact, lost this round.

"Hawkeye?" she asked instead.

"My code name." A little of the heat left his tone at her show of interest. "Like Black Widow, only way cooler. You've heard of Hawkeye," he added confidently.

"No, sorry."

He narrowed his eyes in annoyance and she stretched languidly across the sofa, biting her lip to hide a smile.

"I liked you better unconscious," he mumbled, and disappeared into the kitchen again. He returned with an entire pot of coffee and two bottles of water. He dumped the bottles in her lap and sat on the edge of the table, shoulders sagging.

He was still being nice, damn him. Why was he so nice?

For a moment she thought he intended to drink his coffee straight from the pot, but he shot her a glance and reasonably poured it into his mug instead. She rolled one of the bottles between her hands and considered him. It sounded as if S.H.I.E.L.D. had recruited him the same way he was trying to recruit her. Unlike Barton, she was perfectly happy evading enemy agencies and taking out whoever the KGB chose as her next mark, but she wasn't too fond of the whole Red Room reprogramming aspect of the job.

"What made S.H.I.E.L.D. want to recruit you?" she asked. He perked up and sat a little straighter, and okay, it wouldn't kill her to talk to him. Anyone else would have lost patience and put a bullet through her by now.

"Nothing," he answered with a wry little smile. "Coulson just felt sorry for me. I was this dumb kid, in way over my head. I mean, I had skills, but I wasn't really worth the risk."

She didn't quite believe that. Agencies like S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't waste resources taking in operatives if they didn't have potential to be assets.

"You want to tell the story," she guessed, and although it was supposed to be more a statement of fact than an invitation, he took it as the latter.

"If you're asking," he shrugged, and set his coffee aside. "I'd just turned nineteen, so dumb kid, like I said. I thought I knew who I worked for. They told me who needed an arrow through the heart, I made it happen. In return I got food and a place to sleep and something that sort of reminded me of a family. There was a mission one night, new shipment of munitions for a military base. Some warehouse in the middle of nowhere. The boss wanted it, we went in and took it.

"I was always up in the rafters on jobs like that, keeping watch and taking out guards. We tripped a silent alarm that night. Didn't realize it until we heard the helicopters and sirens. My team took an every-man-for-himself approach, so I had about thirty seconds to haul ass outside to the van. I fell out of the rafters instead, ended up with a broken leg. They didn't come back for me."

He paused, for effect, she supposed. His story probably drew the appropriate reaction from junior agents and new recruits, made them realize they should be grateful to work for an organization with fail-safes and protocols and superiors who would keep the team together on a mission.

"Dumb kid," she agreed. "That's why I don't work with partners."

He heaved a sigh and shook his head.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. tossed me in a containment cell for a couple weeks after that. One morning instead of breakfast, I got Coulson. He dragged a chair into my cell and listened. He's an easy guy to like, and I didn't have anything to lose, so when he asked I told him everything, from the beginning. He thought I deserved a second chance. He said sometimes good people do bad things, but that doesn't make you a bad person. Well, he made it sound more eloquent than that, but you get the idea.

"Later, when I asked how I could repay him, he said I should give someone else the same opportunity."

He gave her a pointed look and an encouraging smile. She had a brief moment of indignity over being Barton's charity case, but the situation seemed more complex than that. She'd been trained to know when she was being lied to, when she was being manipulated, and Clint Barton wasn't doing either. Underneath the combat skills, alarmingly accurate marksmanship, and an uncanny ability to stalk her every move, he was sincere and genuine. He didn't want anything from her, she realized now. He was helping because he was kind, because it was as much a part of his personality as the dogged determination he'd used to track her down.

"Killing is still killing, whether I'm doing it for the KGB or S.H.I.E.L.D.," she argued. It was unnerving, the way she felt she could trust him.

"That's what I thought, too. But it makes a difference."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't going to want me," she warned. "Not after I fill in the holes in your intel about the things I've done."

"Why not? You think the worst I ever did was lift a few rocket launchers?" He moved to sit beside her on the couch. The gesture was probably supposed to be comforting. "About a year before I got caught, I bombed three subway cars in Chicago. They didn't know who did it, but I confessed to Coulson before he signed off on my joining. He still took a chance on me, after I killed fourteen people and injured another two hundred. You just do more good to make up for it."

She pitied his naivety. She wished she didn't have a handful of trump cards to throw back at him.

"You can tell me the worst mission you can think of, and I promise I'll still bring you in, if you want to come."

He didn't mean it as a challenge, but a sick impulse burned deep in her chest and she immediately chose the story she wanted to give him in return. She didn't know what to do with Clint Barton, who seemed to believe everyone could be redeemed with the right opportunity. Once he saw her as she really was, what she was capable of, he'd give up on her, and it would serve her right for thinking even for a moment that he could save her.

There was too much Black Widow and not enough Natalia left. Being the Black Widow was safe, comfortable. She wasn't sure she could be as virtuous as Barton, atone for years upon years of unrestrained carnage, and she hated the thought of failing. She didn't need S.H.I.E.L.D.'s help, she could find someone else to undo the Red Room's programming.

"There was a politician," she began, and was suddenly grateful for the too-big sweatshirt and fuzzy blanket. Recalling that particular mission always left her feeling cold and hollow. "The KGB needed him as a pawn, but he wasn't easily bought or corrupted. He needed a demonstration. A lesson."

Barton shuffled to sit sideways on the sofa, facing her and leaning slightly forward, rapt with attention and curious. Naive. She could imagine his thoughts jumping to torture and coercion, unsavory methods but nothing too damning.

"He had a daughter. They hit her with a car, made sure he recognized the driver as the man who had tried to bribe him earlier. She wasn't killed," she added quickly, because Barton opened his mouth to interrupt. "They made contact again, their offer threats this time instead of money under the table. Again he refused."

Barton was leaning so far into her personal space she had a strong urge to shove him back. She was obviously the better storyteller.

"They sent me to the hospital two days later. I brought a gun and a silencer and went in during the nurses' shift change. The children's ward was bigger than I expected and I had to read the charts at the foot of the beds to find her."

_Viktor and Dimitri and Tanya and Irina._

She realized her hands were shaking; she jammed them in the front pocket of Barton's pullover to hide the weakness.

"I had a pillow pressed over her face, but my handler stopped me. He insisted I wear a comm unit that night. He said '_She burns_.' Then he said '_They all burn_.' It was a hospital, chemicals and accelerants everywhere, it wasn't difficult."

"You burned the entire children's ward?" he asked quietly. His fascination seemed to have waned a bit. She didn't care for the hard, judgmental gleam behind his eyes.

"Sometimes a mission's meant to be a test. That one was a test."

"So you passed?" he asked, although his tone gave it the weight of a statement rather than a question.

He probably wanted her to deny it, and for a brief instant she considered lying, although she couldn't understand why his opinion of her suddenly mattered. She could always give him the whole truth, explain how any hesitation on a mission like that would end with a reprimand and an immediate trip back to the compound where she'd spent her childhood for reconditioning. She could tell him that she _had_ hesitated, paused a moment too long before striking the match. She could tell him about that long week in a cold cell, having the idea of immediate compliance beaten back into her, how they tried to bury Natalia under the Black Widow once again but failed.

"What do you think?" she returned, and left him to come to his own conclusion.

"I think my offer's still on the table." His expression was grim, no more easy smiles. "Get some sleep, I'll keep watch. You can give me an answer in the morning."

He didn't speak to her again, just checked the door and flipped the lights and settled in the chair by the window. He twitched the curtain aside, and in the faint glow of city lights she could make out the deep frown still marring his features. She wished she hadn't told him about the fire.

...


End file.
